21 responses to “Götterdämmeringtone”

Even if this was a funny joke (it’s not), it’s extremely pathetic as a Sunday strip. Especially since if it was three panels it probably wouldn’t showcase Dinkle ignoring his wife while he hangs out with a female former student of his for some reason.

I liked Dinkle better when he was deaf that time. Perhaps a future story arc could see him being rendered unable to speak. Or unable to be seen. That would be swell. I think Lefty’s listless, tepid and marginally bemused smirk in the final panel says it all.

I saw Ban Tom & Inc’s latest blog ramblings earlier today. Something about the cancer book (actually a collection of previously released comic strips in book form), something about The Flash and a rather rambling new chapter of his rather rambling history of “Batom Comics..The Self-Indulgent Comic Book Company!”. Just kidding…strike those “rathers”. Anyhow yadda yadda yadda it’s way more involved than his FW storylines, that’s for damned sure. Just as nonsensical but way more involved.

@Epicus Doomus:
That post about the “history of Bantom comics” is really baffling. Who does he think cares? And if he really thinks anyone cares, why doesn’t he have a comments section so he can actually interact with them? It just comes off as extremely lame and boring pontificating. The sad thing is there’s probably a good amount of background notes to it, timelines and brainstorming. For a fictional history of a fictional comic book company on a blog that 99.999% of even the comic reading population doesn’t know exists. Seriously, now we know why he can’t be bothered to remember a character’s name or what happened two weeks ago in the same arc he’s writing. (And sense presumably he writes multiple weeks at a time, wouldn’t it be remembering what he just wrote earlier in the day?) If I was the owner of a paper printing FW, or someone with his syndicate paying him to write FW, and saw how much time and effort he spent on that silly blog, I’d be furious.

Great. Batiuk sort of IS Dinkle in a way: a boring old drone chattering away inanely about past glories that weren’t as glorious as nostalgia makes them while ignoring what’s important and getting his BVDs in a bunch when people display ingratitude by trying to get a word in edgewise.

Case in point: his mad love for the stupid gibberish coming out of DC when the smart kids made theirs Marvel.

Part of the problem is that the phrasing of “Wagner ring tone” doesn’t make it immediately apparent that it’s a pun and not simply a statement of fact. “It’s the Ringtone of the Nibelungs” would have made it clearer that it was a joke.

SpacemanSpiff85: It’s a real mystery. I mean why not just do a “Batom Comics” arc in FW? What would be the harm? If he can pour that kind of attention and detail into blog posts, why doesn’t the strip merit the same sort of effort?

Then there’s this: “Lisa’s Story has certainly travelled a long way and it seems like there’s still some road to go. There are some exciting things in the offing regarding Lisa’s Story itself and The Lisa’s Legacy Fund for cancer research. As we get closer to the rollouts, I’ll be posting the news first here in the blog so stay tuned.”

Cancer research is great, no snark necessary as no one anywhere would possibly have a problem with that. But LS has “more road to go”? What? It’s a seven (almost eight) year old story, it’s been milked bone dry for years, how much more mileage IS there? The LS victory laps and bows never end, it’s endless. How many times does it really need to be revisited?

It reminds me of an old rock band that “decides” to do a “classic album” set because no one wants to hear anything else they’ve done, as if it’s just an “artistic decision” and not merely another shot at milking the bell cow. I mean let it go already. And the “graphic novel” stuff kills me, as it’s actually just a collection of previously-released comic strips. 90% of the story is sheer premise-rehashing anyhow.

If you want to suffer slightly less whilst reading Bantom, Inc.’s (he still hasn’t corrected the typo in his corporation’s copyright notice) FW blog, use this link, which eliminates the annoying frame: http://www.funkywinkerbean.com/blog_feed.php.

Update 1: To scroll on a touch device, you have to turn off JavaScript, because BanTom’s web team is as proficient as you might expect.

Update 2: don’t bother. He writes like a college freshman. In just 5 paragraphs, he trots out clichés and not uncommon negated negatives, and manages to confuse a champaign for champagne and to misspell alongside. I would say that I think he wipes his arse with The Elements of Style, but that presumes that he knows of its existence.

“Breaking even is generally not the goal that a new enterprise is shooting for, but in the summer of 1954, the entire comic book industry was barely breaking even so, all in all, the opening of of a bottle of champaign was not totally inappropriate.”

That’s verbatim, his errors, not mine. I assume that “Flash Freeman” was the guy in Pete’s daydream olden-days fantasy sequence a few weeks back.

In the comic strip collection section, as always… a treasure trove of “Peanuts,” “Calvin and Hobbes,” “Pearls before Swine,” “Bloom County,” “Dilbert…” the big names. Even the first three volumes of “The Complete Pogo” (which grabbed my attention) and “The Complete Far Side.”

There was only ONE copy of “Lisa’s Story” seemingly languishing among two copies of that other “Crankshaft” collection I knew nothing about. (“Strike Four?”) No sign of any of the complete FW collections, not that I would have been interested in looking at any of them.

As I left the store with a Tintin volume and another art instruction book, it hit me. Batom®’s hometown… his home market… is shockingly apathetic and indifferent to his own work. And Cleveland is probably one of the few places on Planet Earth where one might find someone who reads Funky Winkerbean unironically.

Well, to be fair, he normally updates about once every six months, although for some reason three times this weekend? Batiuk, you never cease to amaze.

@Nathan–“Strike Four” is out? Remember, it’s the one that those Hollywood phoneys, who he was trying to sell out to, suggested when they said it needed an overarching theme, like Crankshaft’s Baseball career.

@bad wolf: Apparently that’s the book. Honestly, I didn’t even bother to take a look at “Strike Four” due to a lack of interest. And I made a personal vow never to look at or buy a copy of “Lisa’s Story” for as long as I’m alive. Same with any of the “Complete Funky Winkerbean” volumes.

It does say an awful lot when other comic strips collections are published either through Universal Uclick or Fantagraphics… and Batom®’s books are all vanity print jobs through Kent State University.